Astronaut Joshua Kutryk began a Thursday spacewalk with NASA astronaut Anil Menon to install solar panels on the International Space Station.
The Story
Astronaut Joshua Kutryk began his spacewalk as planned on Thursday, making him the fifth Canadian astronaut to perform such a mission.
Kutryk and NASA astronaut Anil Menon placed their suits on battery power and started their spacewalk at 7:57 a.m. EDT. They were set to work on installing solar panels on part of the International Space Station, which was nearly 420 kilometres above Earth when they entered space. Their spacewalk was expected to last nearly seven hours.
Before they left the airlock, astronauts inside the station wished them well. NASA flight engineer Jessica Watkins told them, “From Luke (Delaney) and I on the other side of the hatch, good luck. We’re proud of you and we’ll see you on the other side,” NASA flight engineer Jessica Watkins told them.
Kutryk was on his first mission in space, and the trip outside the station was expected to be his first of two spacewalks. Kutryk and Menon departed from the Quest airlock module to install solar panels on the station’s portside truss structure. The truss acts as the orbital outpost’s structural backbone and supports major systems including solar wings, radiators, power, data, and temperature-control equipment.
Watkins and Luke Delaney, also NASA flight engineers, were set to assist the spacewalkers with the Canadarm 2 robotic arm.
The last Canadian astronaut to perform a spacewalk was David Saint-Jacques in 2019.
← More stories